


Peanut Butter Pie

by quantumlittlecat



Series: Soulmate Oneshots [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Insecure Tony, Pie, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Yikes there's like no dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 14:03:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumlittlecat/pseuds/quantumlittlecat
Summary: Tony gets his mark at nineteen, and it definitely doesn't give him a complex. (It totally does.)A companion piece to Public Information.





	Peanut Butter Pie

**Author's Note:**

> So, full disclosure, I keep trying to rework this and it still comes out kind of...not dark per se, but definitely sadder than Public Information. I just feel like Tony's super macho exterior is a front, and all those years without a soulmate were really rough for him.

Tony’s words appear on a crisp fall day during his first semester of grad school at MIT. He feels the burn under his t-shirt and his heart sinks. At his age he was hoping to be markless, instead now he has a soulmate nearly two decades his junior. _Perfect, now you have to wait like eighteen years before you meet your soulmate, and hope to God you don’t meet them before that like some giant creep._ So, he does the only thing that makes sense. He spends seventy-two hours in the lab fueled by coffee and constant low-grade anxiety over his soulmate. When he finally drags himself back to his apartment he stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror for a long time, dissociated almost. He pulls his shirt over his head and examines the black letters trailing along his lower stomach. The handwriting is somewhat sloppy but still feminine. He traces his fingers over it, somewhat fondly. Then he reads it.

_You’re shorter than I thought you’d be._

His teenaged ego is bruised, but the familiarity doesn’t surprise him. Even at his age, he’s been in the papers and the tabloids. He can only imagine what will happen when he takes over the company from his father eventually. But, he reasons, eighteen years is a long time, so he sets about living his life as he sees fit. And if he happens to pursue overtly manly hobbies and cultivate a persona as a hyper-masculine icon, it’s merely a coincidence. It has nothing, NOTHING to do with his soulmate’s comment about his short stature, and it DEFINITELY isn’t a convoluted way to prove himself to her, how dare you.

The one thing he’s incredibly careful about is keeping his mark covered. From the moment it appears on his skin, he knows it must be kept secret. For a while, he just covers it with duct tape from the lab but quickly realizes he can’t do that for years on end. The tape residue is irritating, and it’s far too obvious. So over winter break he locks himself in the lab for three weeks and makes a patch. A polymer that sticks to his skin better than tape, but not as harsh, that matches skin tone on contact, and subtle enough to not attract undue attention from afar. For years he keeps it to himself until Pepper finds out and pressures him into releasing it to the public via a Stark Industries subsidiary.

While he waits for his soulmate, he protects himself. He doesn’t pose shirtless on magazine covers, despite numerous offers. He doesn’t swim publicly without a shirt for fear that an eagle-eyed paparazzo will sell pictures speculating about a soul mark. He doesn’t sleep in the same bed as his sexual conquests, ducking out when they drift off, lest they see the patch close up and get curious while he sleeps. Not even Pepper, for all his trust in her, is an exception to the rule. The only time he’s without it is in the privacy of his own bedroom. He spends countless nights in the dark, running his fingers lightly over the words, turning over theorems and concepts in his mind. He falls asleep most nights with his hand resting gently over his mark.

As the years slip by, the hole in his life left by his missing soulmate seems to loom larger and larger. He makes the Forbes 30 Under 30 list every year from age nineteen until he’s too old, and he makes the Forbes billionaires and wealthiest individuals lists every year without fail. He builds Stark Tower, becomes Iron Man, revolutionizes clean energy, and saves the world. Nothing is enough. He invites the rest of the Avengers, all their soulmates, and all their support staff to live in the tower in a desperate bid to fill the gap he feels in his life. As forty comes and goes, he begins to wonder if she’ll ever show up.

He throws himself into work. He spends thirty-six hours in the lab, then twelve hours sleeping, for weeks on end, punctuated only by Avengers missions and Pepper shoving food into his hands while he works. Even then he has trouble sleeping and often finds himself wandering the tower at odd hours of the night. It’s how he finds himself in the kitchen in the Avengers’ common area at three AM on a Thursday. He opens the fridge and stares blankly at the contents. Something on the middle shelf catches his eye.

It’s a peanut butter pie. Graham cracker crust. His favorite. With stripes of fudge sauce and chopped Reese’s cups on top. He smiles, for the first time in possibly months. He reaches for it but notices a post-it note attached to the top of the tin. He grabs the note, reads it quickly, and his heart drops to his stomach.

_For family dinner-_

_DO NOT TOUCH!_

_(This means you, Clint!)_

His hand flies to his stomach, where, under his ratty t-shirt the handwriting from the note is scrawled across his skin. She’s here. In the tower.

“J?” His voice is raspy from lack of use.

“Yes, Sir?”

“Who made the pie?”

“Miss Lewis. Doctor Foster’s assistant and the lab manager.”

“And uh... family dinner?”

“Miss Lewis is hosting a dinner for the Avengers tomorrow evening in the common area. The invitation was sent to your email last weekend.”

“Oh,” Tony replies lamely. He pauses for a moment, considering his options. He could go to this family dinner and meet her, or…he could chicken out. For all his bravado, when it comes to the idea of love and emotional intimacy, Tony is... not his usual self to say the least.

“Jarvis, send me all the information you have on her, I’ll be in my rooms.”

“Yes, Sir.” Tony swears the AI sounds smug if that’s even possible.

He walks briskly back to his floors, and after a long shower, sits down on his couch with a Starkpad. He begins to read through the information but can’t get past the first page. He’s enraptured by her picture. He closes his eyes and tilts his head back.

“Jarvis, just give me the highlights.”

“Of course, sir. Darcy Lewis. Twenty-three years old – “

“Shit,” Tony hisses. _She’s so young. Too young. It wouldn’t be right to…shit._ Logically, he knows she’s almost twenty years his junior, but hearing it out loud, how much younger she is, makes him feel like a total creep.

“Graduated with honors from Culver University with a BS in Political Science. Current lab manager for Doctors Foster and Banner- “

_Would it be inappropriate for her to manage his lab too? Would that be weird? Too much?_

“-though Miss Potts has been trying to talk her into a more prestigious position in the PR department, without much success.” Tony smiles at that. The idea of not even Pepper being able to sway his soulmate into doing something.

He’s torn between keeping his distance and pursuing her. But he settles on avoiding her. He dodges the invitations to family dinners, ducks out of the lab when he knows she’s passing by, even has Jarvis alert him when she’s headed to a common area. He reads her file occasionally, smiling at the thought of her running a fangirl blog about him in high school, reading Pepper’s recommendation to her that she apply to Columbia for grad school. For a while, that’s enough. Just knowing her on paper.

Late one night, after a science binge, Tony lays in bed, gazing down at the letters curling across his skin, just thinking about her. He falls asleep wondering if he’ll ever get over himself long enough to start something with her. He awakens to the blaring of the Avengers alarm, and without thinking, he summons the suit and meets the team on the roof.

Hours later, after a particularly grueling mission, the entire team is forced into decontamination showers by Pepper. Despite his protests that the suit would keep out all contaminants, Tony is required to strip and be scrubbed down just like everyone else. Afterward, he wraps a towel low around his hips, and strides out of the shower, finding himself in the team locker room. He nods cordially at Bruce. Bruce’s gaze shifts from Tony’s stomach to his face, eyebrows raising an almost imperceptible amount. Bruce turns and starts to walk towards the exit but stops himself after just a few steps.

“So, are you going to avoid her forever?”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s lived in the same building as you for months now. I know you know. Are you going to avoid her forever?”

“It’s not that simple Bruce- “

“Isn’t it? You’re soulmates.”

“But I’m- “

“Don’t give me your self-loathing schtick Tony. Of all people, it’s certainly not gonna work on me. Trust me, she likes you already.” Bruce looks at Tony’s uncertain and somewhat panicked expression. “Come on, I’ll introduce you. I think you’ll be great for each other.”

Tony sighs and runs a hand through his hair. The cat’s out of the bag now, he can’t back out. And deep down, he knows Bruce is right. The universe marked them as soulmates for a reason. Whatever hangups he has about his age, or his ability to be emotionally vulnerable, he can’t walk away from the one person the universe handpicked for him. Tony groans in frustration but pulls on his clothes as fast as he can and, taking a deep breath, follows Bruce out the door of the locker room and to the elevators. Bruce is grinning widely as he presses the elevator button for the common area, almost holding back a laugh.

“What?” Tony grumbles.

“I’ve just never seen you this worked up. Gotta drink it in while I can because once she opens her mouth you’re not gonna have any doubts.” The elevator dings softly and the doors slide open. Before he can second guess himself, Tony strides into the common area after Bruce.

And he’s wrong. Bruce is wrong. His soulmate doesn’t even need to open her mouth. Just seeing her, real, in the kitchen, covered in flour, and he has no doubts. She’s saying something to Bruce, and her gaze shifts to Tony for a moment. For a split second, their eyes meet, and Tony feels everything shift into place. The hole in his life is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. Still unsure about my characterization of Tony here. Idk. Let me know what you think!


End file.
